El Rosario Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary

Many people have heard about the amazing lifecycle and migration of the Monarch Butterfly from the Great Lakes region of North America to its winters in the mountains of Michoacan in Central Mexico. The amazing thing is this annual cycle takes five generations of the butterfly so there is no direct connection to the wintering grounds in Mexico. Deb and I hired a guide to take us to them. Altitude 3300 meters - temperature that night 2C. It was frosty but the hike up definately put a sweat on our brow. We hung out with the butterflys for a couple of hours and took tons of pix and video. The thing that is difficult to fathom from these pix is that the area is huge with hundreds and thousands of trees covered just like these. A final note, President Calderon of Mexico has budgeted some 35 million dollars toward the protection of this species and its environment. Ironically the butterflies greatest threat is the irradication of common milkweed throughout Canada and the States as this is the butterflies main food source during its migration.